Jean Sanders - Centreville Spy

Food Friday: Thanksgiving Redux

November 28, 2025 by Jean Sanders Leave a Comment

This is a repeat of our almost-annual Food Friday Thanksgiving column, because we are still trying to recover from yesterday’s holiday feast. NPR still has Susan Stamberg’s Cranberry Relish recipe, although Susan died recently. We will remember her mother-in-law’s recipe fondly every Thanksgiving. Mama Stamberg’s Cranberry Relish

Somewhere on the internet yesterday you heard Arlo Guthrie singing Alice’s Restaurant for its 58th year. (Farewell to, Alice, too. “And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest”.) The Spy’s Gentle Readers get to enjoy the annual rite of leftovers as engineered when my son was in college. In in these fraught times it feels reassuring to remind ourselves of the simpler times. Here’s a wish for a happier, kinder world next Thanksgiving!

And here we are, the day after Thanksgiving. Post-parade, post-football, post-feast. Also post-washing up. Heavens to Betsy, what a lot of cleaning up there was. And the fridge is packed with mysterious little bundles of leftovers. We continue to give thanks that our visiting college student is an incessant omnivore. He will plow systematically through Baggies of baked goods, tin-foiled-turkey bits, Saran-wrapped-celery, Tupperware-d tomatoes and wax-papered-walnuts.

It was not until the Tall One was in high school that these abilities were honed and refined with ambitious ardor. His healthy personal philosophy is, “Waste not, want not.” A sentiment I hope comes from generations of hardy New Englanders as they plowed their rocky fields, dreaming of candlelit feasts and the TikTok stars of the future.

I have watched towers of food rise from his plate as he constructs Jenga arrangements of sweet, sour, crunchy and umami items with the same deliberation and concentration once directed toward Lego projects. And I am thankful that few of these will fall to the floor and get walked over in the dark. We also miss Luke the wonder dog, and his Hoovering abilities. What a good dog.

I have read that there may have been swan at the first Thanksgiving. How very sad. I have no emotional commitment to turkeys, and I firmly belief that as beautiful as they are, swans are mean and would probably peck my eyes out if I didn’t feed them every scrap of bread in the house. Which means The Tall One would go hungry. It is a veritable conundrum.

The Pilgrim Sandwich is the Tall One’s magnum opus. It is his turducken without the histrionics. It is a smorgasbord without the Swedish chef. It is truly why we celebrate Thanksgiving. But there are some other opinions out there in Food Land.

This is way too fancy and cloying with fussy elements – olive oil for a turkey sandwich? Hardly. You have to use what is on hand from the most recent Thanksgiving meal – to go out to buy extra rolls is to break the unwritten rules of the universe. There are plenty of Parker House rolls in your bread box right this minute – go use them up! This is a recipe for fancy pants folks. Honestly. Was there Muenster cheese on the dining room table yesterday? I think not.
Pilgrim Sandwiches

And if you believe that you are grown up and sophisticated, here is the answer for you. Thanksgiving leftovers for a grown up brunch: After Thanksgiving Brunch

Here are The Tall One’s ingredients for his signature Pilgrim Sandwich, but please feel free to embellish:
Toast (2 slices)
Turkey (2 slices)
Cranberry Sauce (2 teaspoons)
Gravy (2 tablespoons)
Mashed Potatoes (2 tablespoons)
Stuffing (2 tablespoons)
Barbecue Sauce (you can never have too much)
Bacon (if there is some hanging around)
Mayonnaise (if you must)
Lettuce (iceberg, for the crunch)
Celery stalk (more crunch)
Salt, pepper
A side bowl of potato chips

And now I am taking a walk before I consider making my own sandwich.

“Leftovers in their less visible form are called memories. Stored in the refrigerator of the mind and the cupboard of the heart.”
-Robert Fulghum

Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil and ink.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Food Friday: Gobble, Gobble

November 21, 2025 by Jean Sanders Leave a Comment

We had hoped to simplify Thanksgiving this year. We have recently moved to temporary lodgings in an apartment while the new house is being finished, and confidently, and foolishly, have stowed most of our household gear in a storage unit. You couldn’t find Rosebud in that crammed storage space. Indiana Jones couldn’t find the Grail tucked in all those boxes and piles and rolls of rugs. It’s not crucial that I have turtlenecks just yet, but it might have been convenient to have the measuring cups, the garlic press, or a decent knife during the past month. I have been drinking my cheap white wine from a plastic wine glass left over from our Florida pool days. We have no festive Thanksgiving platters or cheery Pilgrim candle holders on hand. No good china. No electric knife. No gravy boat. They are tucked deep in the bowels of the Extra Space Storage Building. It’s looking grim here.

Next week we will be gathering together in a rental cottage near Savannah to share the Thanksgiving festivities with our daughter and her partner, and their two dynamo boys. Holiday cooking in rental houses can be fraught with complications because you never know what to expect, or how well-stocked the nearest grocery store is. Usually I overcompensate and overpack: the KitchenAid stand mixer, the cookie sheets, the roasting pan, the rolling pin, the gravy separator, the electric knife, a few platters, rolls of aluminum foil, parchment paper and Saran Wrap for the leftovers, mayonnaise for the leftovers turkey sandwiches, candles, tablecloths. Crafts for the boys. You name it, I would have packed it. We have never traveled light before. This will be an interesting year for us all. Interesting being the key word – like a grim passage in Dr. Spock, foretelling disaster and unmet developmental marker expectations. Irreversible disaster, and ruin.

At first Mr. Sanders and I had supposed that we could make changes to the traditional menu and streamline the prep. We floated that idea on a group call yesterday – where our suggestion that we skip the turkey this year was met with shocked silence. Dead air. A vacuum. Disbelief.

Then we suggested bringing a nice big homemade lasagne; heavy with sauce and cheese and spicy meatballs, redolent with garlic and memories of home. We had rationalized that we could just heat up the lasagne, and have lots of time to go for walks, find shells, rent bicycles. We didn’t realize that we had produced a hide-bound traditionalist, who was raising children steeped in Americana myths and legends. With the precision of an Ivy-trained lawyer, she argued that we must have turkey. Thanksgiving needs hot rolls and lumpy gravy. How could we expect them to go without green beans and cranberries and pie? Life is just not worth living without stuffing and candlelight and mac and cheese. Her final argument: what about the children?

Some of those bright and chirpy food writers say that you can prepare all of the Thanksgiving dishes ahead of time. They also have well-stocked test kitchens, staff, and expense accounts. Please excuse my very unladylike guffaw. In this rental apartment, which is just like a college dorm room, we have one cookie sheet, one nonstick frying pan, one mixing bowl and one battered old brownie pan – so I will not be preparing anything in advance. We don’t even have a Hot Pot. I harbor the fear being in a strange kitchen with its inevitable dearth of potholders. There was one year in a Thanksgiving rental that we were spatchcocking a 24-pound turkey, for the first time. Ever. Six college degrees were deemed useless as we grappled with the enormous carcass and one potholder.

I am considering hocking my soul and buying a Thanksgiving dinner already prepared by the closest grocery store. That will pry open the children’s eyes to the grim realities of modern living. This is the year that the boys will probably also figure out the truth about Santa. Bye, bye childhood. Sigh. Being an adult is hard.

Wish me luck next week. I am going to listen to Julia Child who believed: “If you’re alone in the kitchen and you drop the lamb, you can always just pick it up. Who’s going to know?” This is excellent advice as we might have to resort to instant mashed potatoes, and gravy from a jar this year – and no one will be wiser. I bought the pie crusts yesterday. I know for a fact that the Pepperidge Farm dinner rolls that we will pick up Tuesday night at Food Lion are going to be delicious, too. Which will leave us plenty of leisure time for family walks and photo ops and whipping the cream. Use your time wisely. Life is short. Bring potholders. Gobble, gobble.

Even Joan Didion used store-bought side dishes. In Wednesday’s New York Times: “She paid assistants to help cook and serve for these big occasions, and didn’t sweat details that could be finessed with store-bought ingredients like frozen artichokes or canned sweet potatoes.” We can rest reassured by Didion’s literary precedent setting. Joan Didion’s Thanksgiving: Dinner for 75, Reams of Notes, By Patrick Farrell.

“Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.”
― Mark Twain

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Food Friday: Green Beans, Reimagined

November 14, 2025 by Jean Sanders Leave a Comment

I have never bought a can of cream of mushroom soup. I have never willingly consumed it. I will never buy a can of cream of mushroom soup. That is my mantra. If I could embroider I would probably have a cross-stitched pillow or two that announced this aversion. It might be genetic – my mother never used that staple of 1960s cooking, although she was fond of Jell-o molds. I doubt if my children have ever cooked with mushroom soup – although I have never asked them directly – I am employing delicate generational diplomacy: some things are private.

Not willingly eating mushroom soup has never made me popular at Thanksgiving, when everyone in the United States whips up their secret family recipe for Green Bean Casserole, which involves cooking perfectly delicious and crunchy green beans in a white Corning Ware casserole dish, smothered in a chemical septic field of gray mushroom slop, topped with canned fried onions. At Thanksgiving we should be giving thanks for the wonderful bounty of nature – not for PFAS, sodium nitrates, and other preservatives.

As a child I did not care for cooked vegetables, with the exception of corn and potatoes. And pizza. I have always preferred the crisp snap of fresh beans, the cool orbs of peas as they slide out of their pods, and cold, peppery radishes, floating in Pyrex bowls of iced water. It was one of my mother’s super powers that she assigned vegetable duties to me and my brother on the back porch steps in the summertime. It might take us forever to shell the peas, or string the beans, or shuck the corn, but we were quiet, and out of her hair. The price she paid was we might not fill the cooking pot with peas, because we had gobbled a few handfuls as we performed our task: one pea for me, one pea for the pot. The same technique worked with the string beans. We’d break of the ends, eat a few beans, throw the rest into the colander. We ate the greens without Mom hectoring us. Genius. And deelish. Who could eat hot, slimed green beans, dripping with mushroom soup after that childhood exposure to healthy eating?

I almost overlooked an obituary in the New York Times a few years ago. Dorcas Reilly died in New Jersey at 92. Reilly invented the almost ubiquitous Green Bean Casserole that appears on so many Thanksgiving dinner tables. Modestly, Reilly asserted she was just part of the team that developed the dish at Campbell’s Soup in Camden, New Jersey in 1955. They were looking for a tasty, economical side dish. This has just six ingredients, and it can be easily assembled by anyone. It became an institutional classic; it was America at its most homogenous and bland. Campbell’s estimated once that 20 million green bean casseroles would be prepared annually in the United States at Thanksgiving. Imagine being the person who was responsible for such a legacy. Will you have a green bean casserole on your table? Dorcas Reilly obituary

The Original: Campbell’s Green Bean Casserole
1 10 3/4-ounce can of Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon soy sauce
A dash of pepper
4 cups cut green beans
1-1/3 cups of French fried onions

Mix soup, milk, soy, pepper, beans and 2/3 cup onions in 1-1/2-quart casserole.

Bake at 350°F for 25 minutes, or until hot. Stir. Sprinkle with remaining onions. Bake five minutes. Serves six.

Here is an alternative: This is a labor-intensive recipe, best brought to a potluck Thanksgiving, when you can boast about making the mushroom sauce from scratch. No sodium-riddled canned soup for you! Green Bean Casserole

I just love these bundles of beans trussed up with ribbons of bacon: Green Bean Bundles

This recipe can be made in advance, but it eliminates all the fun of the French fried onions, and it makes you make bread crumbs! Shocking! Another Green Bean Casserole

Get organized! The Thanksgiving clock is ticking down!

In two short weeks Thanksgiving will be over – except for the best part with the Pilgrim sandwiches, and some leftover pumpkin pie, smuggled cold from the fridge and eaten hastily while standing at the pantry window, looking out over the swirl of black leaves in your childhood home’s back yard.

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”
—John Fitzgerald Kennedy

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Food Friday: Easing into Thanksgiving

November 7, 2025 by Jean Sanders Leave a Comment

November is the busiest time for cooks and food writers – we cannot get enough of complicated planning, and scribbling bulleted lists, and charting menus and spread sheets for the Thanksgiving meal where we will gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing. I amaze myself by discovering how much time I can waste thinking about place cards. Place cards! There will be just six of us for Thanksgiving dinner this year, two of whom will be under 12 years old, and one of whom does not yet read. They will not appreciate the carefully inked swirls of calligraphic artistry. It might be best to just simplify.

Every year we like to remember Thanksgivings past. Like the year when we ran out of chairs, and the children’s table was children sitting cross legged on the floor around a coffee table. And how, like clockwork, we almost always manage to forget to cook the green beans until after the parade of food from the kitchen to the table has begun. Did you know that you can make the mashed potatoes ahead of time? Traditionally we always have to waylay a couple of mashed potato workers, one who peels with aplomb, and another who mashes with glee. What if I make the potatoes myself on Wednesday, and re-heat them on Thursday? Oooh – the time space continuum in the kitchen has been radically expanded!

One Thanksgiving when we lived in Florida we ate outside, at tables we had rigged up with sheets of plywood and saw horses, because it was a pleasant temperature and we had lots of friends there with their lots of wriggling children. We fired up the fairy lights and moved the stereo speakers onto the back patio. It was an adventure to eat formally, with candles and sterling, with the ancestral china, and tinkling crystal outside, but not one wriggling child fell into the pool. It was a good meal, and so memorable.

It is too early to know if outdoor dining is feasible for Thanksgiving this year. Thanksgiving dinner is rarely impromtu, or improvised because we are already scrawling our shopping lists here in the first week of November. But I have to say that the al fresco Thanksgiving was delightful, with zephyr breezes and elbow room and bright twinkly lights. Everyone who attended brought a covered dish and a chair. If we try it again this year we know that we can skip using the good china, just this once, and break out the finest of paper plates. It will be dark-ish, after all. And maybe we can think about grilling a turkey breast instead of risking life and limb by deep frying an entire bird – and you can spend even more time outdoors: Grilled Turkey Added bonus: the white wine will chill itself, especially in red Solo cups.

So start your low-key Thanksgiving planning. Be innovative. You don’t have to go outside. Skip our green bean tradition and try forgetting to roast the Brussels sprouts this year. Sprouts Bake a spice cake, and swirl on the cream cheese icing, instead of doing elaborate calligraphy. The under-twelves will love it. Spiced Pumpkin Layer Cake

If you are going to be a smaller family unit this year, how about making your life even easier? Roast a chicken. You can still eat drumsticks: Roasted Chicken Then splash out for some really nice wine, and assuage your guilt by making a labor intensive and decadent dessert involving choux pastry, chocolate and creme pat: Decadence Or pick up a pumpkin pie at Costco – who will know? The five-year-old won’t tell.

A dose of romance could liven up a more modest Thanksgiving: lots of candles and a brace of Cornish game hen, wild rice, a green salad and store-bought chocolate eclairs, Beaujolais Nouveau, and fewer dishes to wash. Take a nice meandering walk in the cold, and have an evening streaming comforting Diane Keaton films. Find something to make yourselves happy. And in 20 years, you’ll have a story about the nice, simple Thanksgiving when nothing went awry.

“The best way to find out what we really need is to get rid of what we don’t.”
― Marie Kondō

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Food Friday: Sultana Scones

October 31, 2025 by Jean Sanders Leave a Comment

You might need light sweaters and some extra calories this weekend if you are going to walk around Chestertown and enjoy the spectacle that is Downrigging Weekend. Your mother was right, and breakfast is still the most important meal of the day, so start it off with something tasty. Keep the pencil shavings and twigs for during the week, and gobble up some hearty apple-sultana cinnamon swirls. Save room for sultana scones, too.

My mother was the odd duck on our block who handed out boxes of raisins on Halloween. Can you imagine the shame? While Mom was imposing her sensible vision of order on the neighborhood, I was dancing from house to house, scarfing up as much forbidden candy as I could get. Other households doled out wonderfully decadent candy bars unknown in our house: Baby Ruths, Butterfingers, $10,000 bars, Dark Hersey bars, Clark bars, and Three Musketeers. Such lavish loot! But I lived in the house where crimson boxes of Sun-Maid raisins were the Halloween treat. My mother could well have been handing out toothbrushes. If she were still alive, she probably would be enthusiastically giving out bags of organically-sourced kale chips to all the little Blueys and sand worms and Hermione Grangers who would have come knocking on her door.

I do not mean to disparage raisins completely, but every once in a while, it seems perfectly reasonable to enjoy a kid holiday; something extraordinary and special. Be kind, and generous, with your little ghosties and ghoulies tonight – let them enjoy to spoils of kid-dom. Go ahead – give out Snickers bars. Tomorrow will be time enough to revert to the healthy and home-baked path to righteousness and good health. And to enjoy the Schooner Sultana and Downrigging. https://downrigging.org There will be tall ships and blue grass music, and all that Chestertown has to offer.

The rest of the world enjoys “sultanas” – we Americans have Thompson seedless raisins. (And, of course, Chestertown enjoys the tall ship Sultana.) Don’t quibble. Bake. You can use raisins, golden raisins, sultanas or currents in these recipes. Raisins and Sultanas

Your kitchen will smell wonderful and autumnal while you are baking apples, raisins and cinnamon. This is excellent preparation for Thanksgiving, which is just around the corner: Sultana Cinnamon Swirls

I just love the mechanics of rolling and cutting the dough for these cinnamon rolls. My children grew up with store-bought, vacuum-sealed Pillsbury cinnamon rolls for special breakfast events. These are better. These are much more delicious, and haven’t been doused in preservatives. Cinnamon Rolls

Of course, Food52 always has good ideas: https://food52.com/recipes/24943-grandma-bercher-s-cinnamon-rolls Have a couple of cinnamon rolls, don your sweater, and take to the Chestertown streets. Watch out for the geese.
The inimitable Mary Berry has a recipe for homemade scones: Mary Berry’s Scones

“We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea – whether it is to sail or to watch it – we are going back from whence we came.”
-John F. Kennedy

Here is a link to all that is happening this year for Downrigging Weekend

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Food Friday: Pumpkin Patch

October 24, 2025 by Jean Sanders Leave a Comment

You really should go visit a local pumpkin patch. Don’t get lazy and buy a pumpkin at the grocery store. Go wander, and wonder at how many amazing shapes, forms, colors and aromas there are. Pumpkins aren’t just perfect orange spheres these days. There are white, green, grayish green, mottled tangerine, and warty beasties of pumpkins out there in the wild.

Last week I was shocked, shocked to see a family buying a pumpkin at Target of all places! Where is the magic? I had a charming morning encounter with a couple of sprightly old men when I walked into the Episcopal church pumpkin sale in our town. The pumpkins were grouped by size and shape on several of the flat gravestones in the 18th century churchyard. I strolled around, enjoying the views of exotic gourds and enormous squashes before I bought a couple of decorative white pumpkins to put on the kitchen table, and a small pumpkin for making my own pumpkin purée. I’m sorry, Libby’s, but we are going full tilt, homemade for baking this week.

Pumpkins are not just for Halloween decorations and Thanksgiving pie. It’s time to expand our repertoires and use some of our local produce with seasonal gusto. I love a nice spicy pumpkin cake, and even though I have it all gussied up as a fancy cupcake in this week’s illo, it tastes just as deelish when baked as a utilitarian sheet cake, slathered with un-photogenic swathes of cream cheese icing. Homely sheet cakes are every bit as wonderful as all those fancy shop cupcakes, and easier to pack in lunch boxes, too.

You will need to make pumpkin purée. It is messy and fun, and for your first batch you should employ child labor, if you can. After that they will be wise to your ways, so enjoy yourselves for an afternoon. It is an early lesson in farm-to-table. They can pick out the pumpkin, bring it home, carve it up, bake it, purée it, and bake a pumpkin cake. So artisanal!

While making your decision in the pumpkin patch be sure to choose smaller pumpkins, weighing 2 to 4 pounds, for making purée. Larger pumpkins tend to be dry and stringy. An ice cream scoop is a handy tool for removing the seeds and membrane from inside the pumpkin – but I once used an electric jig saw for jack-o-lantern carving (which was exhilarating), but use whatever makes you happy. You can store the purée in bags or in freezer-proof dishes, which means you can whip out homemade purée for almost any occasion.

Pumpkin Cake from Sally’s Baking Addiction

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt 1
1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1 cup vegetable oil
4 large eggs
1 cup packed light or dark brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 cups pumpkin purée
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Cream Cheese Frosting
8 ounces full-fat block cream cheese, softened to room temperature
1/2 cup butter, softened to room temperature
3 cups confectioners’ sugar, plus an extra 1/4 cup if needed
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 350°F and grease a 9×13 inch baking pan. I always use this glass pan.
Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and pumpkin pie spice together in a large bowl. Set aside. Whisk the oil, eggs, brown sugar, granulated sugar, pumpkin, and vanilla extract together until combined. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and use a mixer or whisk until completely combined. Batter will be thick.

Spread batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 30-36 minutes. Baking times vary, so keep an eye on yours. The cake is done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. If you find the top or edges of the cake is/are browning too quickly in the oven, loosely cover it with aluminum foil.
Remove the cake from the oven and set the entire pan on a wire rack. Allow to cool completely. After about 45 minutes, I usually place the cake in the refrigerator to speed things up.

Make the frosting: In a large bowl using a handheld or stand mixer fitted with a paddle or whisk attachment, beat the cream cheese and butter together on high speed until smooth and creamy. Add 3 cups confectioners’ sugar, vanilla, and salt. Beat on low speed for 30 seconds, then switch to high speed and beat for 2 minutes. If you want the frosting a little thicker, add the extra 1/4 cup of confectioners sugar (I add it). Spread the frosting on the cooled cake. Refrigerate for 30 minutes before serving. This helps sets the frosting and makes cutting easier.
Cover leftover cake tightly and store in the refrigerator for 5 days.

Sally’s Pumpkin Cake

Pumpkin cake from Martha – she calls for canned pumpkin purée

Grown-up pumpkin bundt cake (no frosting!)

Pumpkin cupcakes

I found this recipe at the Redman Farms Facebook page.

“Like many indelible family memories, carving a pumpkin begins with someone grabbing a really sharp knife.”
– Dana Gould

I love this idea and plan on swiping it for a Thanksgiving centerpiece: Pumpkin Marigold Centerpiece

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Food Friday: Easy Bake

October 17, 2025 by Jean Sanders Leave a Comment

Now that the threat of the nor-easter has swept past us, and there are cooler, clearer days ahead, we seem able to prepare for autumn. I have a new copse of trees out my window – no more dramatic pecan orchard swinging its loose limbs with abandon. Instead I look out at tall, skinny birches and long-legged long-needled pines. Some of their leaves are turning yellow and gamboge as they glisten and sway with dappling light, shuffling cards and dancing in place. I don’t see many of the opportunistic squirrelly boys we had patrolling the orchard, but this weekend I did see a merry band of bluebirds, joyously celebrating their farewell tour. The changes are slow-moving as we wait for summer to finally depart, and for the cool breezes of fall to waft over our fevered brows.

It’s time to do some easy baking; baking that delivers deliciousness for our minimal investment of time (and skill). It’s time for focaccia. Which is sublime when hot from the oven. It is good warm, it freezes well, and can be eaten for any meal. It is deeply satisfying to bake something warm and oozing olive oil and garlic – without all the bother of sour dough starter maintenance that found its way onto every homebound COVID-19 survivor’s to-do list.

Focaccia can be mixed up after breakfast, and ignored until an hour before dinner. Or you can make the dough after watching the Slow Horses, letting it rise over night, to be put it in the oven the next day. Yet, if you are suddenly seized with the yen for warm, home-baked bread, you can start the dough at lunch and hurry it along through the afternoon, and start baking in time for cocktail hour.
The Practical Kitchen We spent this past week experimenting.

Years ago I found a mix for focaccia at our local IGA market and it was a revelation to someone who had grown up on Pepperidge Farm white bread, Levy’s Jewish rye bread and the occasional loaf of freshly baked Italian bread from the red sauce Italian restaurant my family frequented for celebrations. I wasn’t used to warm and crusty, fresh, yeasty bread. During my European interlude I experienced the standard American food epiphany upon discovering baguettes, brioche, pain perdu, naan, crumpets, scones, hot cross buns, challah, pita, ciabatta, and finally focaccia di Recco col formaggio. Translation: my unformed suburban brain was blown.

Moving to the south brought me a deep appreciation for the simplicity of the biscuit. Upon moving further south (though considering Florida “south” is often debated, volubly) we found a wonderful French bakery, and we worked our way through their inventory of baked daily epi breads, baguettes, pain aux chocolate, croissants, and brioche. Jim and Kim’s bakery on Flagler Street in Stuart was deliciously aromatic, and educational.

This week our first batch of homemade focaccia was wrong in so many ways. The pan I used was too small, so the dough rose to epic, cornbread-y heights. Focaccia is considered a flatbread, or a hearth bread, not a voluminous soufflé. I also relied on the recipe, instead of my experience, and merely coated the pan with olive oil. What I should have done was use a larger, shallower pan, (thank you, Food52 for the sheet pan suggestion) and line it first with parchment paper, and then generously coat the parchment paper with olive oil.

The second batch was better, and more attractive. I dotted the dimpled top with halved cherry tomatoes, and a scattering of Maldon salt, finely minced garlic, and fresh rosemary. You can also consider decorating with cheese, basil, or onion. To bask in the glow of the Mediterranean, you could add lemon slices and green olives. For a more abundantly flavored focaccia you could add Prosciutto, mushrooms, green onions, and arugula. If you’d like something sweeter, for a breakfast dish, consider honey, apples, raisins, raw sugar, orange peel or lemon zest.
I aspire to baking airy, crisp baguettes, and hope in time I will master some of the necessary skills. In the meantime, I am content to have spent a week learning about the simple goodness of focaccia. In these perilous times, it is good to ratchet down some of the anxiety with soothing oozy, warm, crunchy, garlicky goodness. And with the stash in the freezer, it is always close at hand.

Taste Atlas

Bon Appétit

Food52

These are easy – you can start after lunch and have tasty, fresh, piping hot focaccia for dinner. My favorite part was poking the little dimples into the dough after it has risen. And then artfully scattering the rosemary leaves, which I picked from the plant running wild in the container garden. (The rosemary plant has thrived outside even through the past two winters. It is an amazement to me.)

I just loved baking a version of focaccia in our trustworthy cast iron skillet. I’m adding it to the list of good foods that can be prepared in just one pan – always a plus in my book because most of the time I am the designated dishwasher. It was crispy and crusty and tasted divine dipped in a small saucer of olive oil and garlic, salt, pepper, dried oregano and basil. It is practically a meal unto itself. Add salad and wine, and if you are being really pesky, a protein. Mr. Sanders and I gobbled up half a pan, which left half a pan to go in the freezer, that we hauled out delightedly a few nights later. Food in the freezer = money in the bank and less prep time. More time to paint the back porch, or weed the lettuce bed, or watch the blue birds soar through the shimmering, pointillistic autumn leaves.

Skillet focaccia

“The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight…”
—M.F.K. Fisher

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Food Friday: Pot Pies

October 10, 2025 by Jean Sanders Leave a Comment

On a recent dark and stormy night I was about to go through the motions of whipping up an uninspired stir fry of chicken, peas, onions, carrots and some celery for crunch, but it didn’t seem like a warm, inviting meal for a soon-to-be-fall night. It’s not that I harbor any illusions that coming home to our house every night is a journey to Martha-in-Wonderland, but a big part of welcoming a seasonal change is making seasonal meals. Fall demands comfort from the kitchen – and chicken pot pie is nothing but warm comfort.

Here is something to keep in your freezer at all times of the year – a package of puff pastry. This is essential, Home Ec 101 information. Write it down. In cursive! Or tell Alexa to remind you the next time you go to the Trader Joe’s: “Buy puff pastry.”

I have used store-bought pie shells in the past because I am hopeless at home made. Everyone at our table would politely shovel the chicken concoctions into their hungry little mouths. But the puff pastry makes this pie an occasion! Especially when I fashioned cunning fall leaves out of the extra dough. Sometimes the details matter. It was spectacular! It was as if Jiffy Pop Pop Corn had waved a magic wand over my chicken pie ordinaire, and puffed it upward and outward with importance and historical significance. Well, it looked very pretty when it came out of the oven, and was warmer and more presentable than that pedestrian chicken stir fry would ever have been.

I used the same ingredients that would have gone into the stir fry, with the addition of the puff pastry, and some chicken broth. And a little flour. I’ll trot out some other recipes for you later – but you need to keep it simple, for your own sanity. I read one recipe that wanted me to weave strips of pastry into a latticework on top of the pie. That was sheer foolishness. The puff pastry rises and looms like ocean cliffs – do not diminish that drama by getting all mimsy and crafty. Use that time you would have been weaving pastry strips (like those long ago camp pot holders) wisely. Dig out the latest Colorblends catalogue and start figuring out your daffodil planting strategy. Spring is coming.

I poached a boneless chicken breast, although if you have a leftover roasted chicken, you can pull off enough meat for a pie for two people. After poaching the breast, I chopped it up and shredded it – then I chopped up a couple of carrots, some celery, and half an onion, and tossed them into a frying pan with some butter for a few minutes. The onion should be translucent and fragrant. Then I added a handful of flour and 2 cups of chicken broth for the roux, and then the chicken. (Shhhh! Sometimes I skip the flour and the broth and just add Campbell’s Cream of Chicken Soup and a little milk. Campbell’s version) After everything heated up and bubbled along nicely, I poured the mixture into my cute little Le Creuset baking dish that I scored when trolling through Homegoods one day. It’s amazing what you can find sometimes… But a pie pan works just as well. I almost forgot, again, that the pastry dough needs to thaw first. So put that at the top of your list – THAW PASTRY!!! It takes about half an hour, at least at this time of year.

Roll the thawed dough out on a floured surface, just to take out the creases. Then lay it on top of your pan, and with kitchen shears, or even your office Fiskars, trim the excess dough, leaving about half an inch hanging over the edge of the pan, for drama. And if you feel so inclined, cut some autumnal leaves out of the pastry remnants. Don’t forget to wash the top of the pie with a little egg and water mixture – you will get a nice glossy top. IG perfect! Then remember to cut a few slits in the dough to let steam escape during the baking process.

Put the pastry-topped pan on top of a cookie sheet, and pop in a 375°F oven for about 30 to 35 minutes. See – you didn’t need to waste your time basket weaving at all. And now you have an extra moment to fiddle with Wordle, or chill the wine, or to watch last night’s Jimmy Kimmel.

Here’s Martha’s take, although she spends quality time worrying about the crust. “Pshaw!” I say! Martha’s Chicken Potpie

This chicken and leek pie reminds me of the time I lived in London, when I would order an individual pie at Porter’s Restaurant in Covent Garden. It seemed so novel, and so sophisticated, to my frozen Stouffer’s Chicken Pot Pie-trained palate. Ah, youth! Pardon Your French

“Promises and pie-crust are made to be broken.”
-Jonathan Swift

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Food Friday: Slow-Cooker Dinners

October 3, 2025 by Jean Sanders Leave a Comment

We have just moved into temporary quarters – a place too small for our many boxes of books, the hats, the scrapbooks, the baby treasures, our clattering miscellany of pots, pans, racks, roasting pans, wine glasses, salad bowls, platters, the KitchenAid mixer and the Dutch ovens. We hadn’t yet packed up our knives, scouring pads, shrimp de-veiner, can opener, the brownie pan and the Champagne flutes before the packers came – so everything we hold dear – they wrapped in miles of paper, and stashed away in a mountain of boxes, now squirreled away in storage. The packers were more efficient than we were – and were faster and lighter on their feet, too. How could they expect us to live someplace for three months without cookie sheets? All the tablecloths and napkins are snug in boxes packed under our own personal Rosebuds. But somehow, amid the chaos and welter and reams of crisp packing paper, Mr. Sanders had to presence of mind to guard the Crock-Pot®. Thank goodness. And soon we will be able to prepare for fall.

It’s the beginning of October, for heaven’s sake. It’s still hot. Candy corn and Halloween candy have been displayed at the grocery store since August, when the children went back to school! It should be cold by now! At least sweater weather. Please don’t let this be a Halloween when we have to worry about the chocolate candies melting in the neighbors’ Trick or Treat buckets. (Let us pause for a minute and give thanks that the Hurricanes Humberto and Imelda are dancing a pas de deux out in the wide Sargasso Sea instead of along the east coast. Amen!) Let’s enjoy some coolth with our ghoulies and ghosties and long leggedy beasties.

I am ready now to break out the slow-cooker, and rummage around the internet for warm, comforting, homey recipes, since the cook books are God knows where. Every seasonal change brings a different view of what we should be cooking for dinner while breakfast never seems to vary much: a bowl of sticks and twigs livened up with some blueberries or bananas seems fine 12 months out of the year. Maybe we substitute hot oatmeal on snow days, and pancakes for weekends, but otherwise breakfast seems boringly and comfortingly consistent. We do like to vary our dinner prep. In my annual summer project to foist most of the cooking off on Mr. Sanders, I am doing my best to stay out of the blazing hot kitchen. The more grilling he can do, the better. But once the cooler weather rolls around again, I am excited about spending hours puttering, stirring, chopping, flouring, browning, tasting, and imagining warm, candlelit dinners. Maybe with a cheering glass of red wine, and a little Red Garland playing in the background.

We are adrift this year, between homes, and need a little cosseting. But we also have a new town to explore; we’d like to be a little more foot loose and fancy free, and don’t want to be stuck in a pokey apartment all day long – so a Crock-Pot® is the answer. We can load it up with tasty ingredients, run out for a few hours to case the new neighborhood, and come back to the apartment, that for an evening, will smell like home, and our dinner will be waiting for us. Genius.

Our smart friends at Food52 have the answer, as usual: Chicken Parm Soup

Slow Cooker French Wine and Mustard Chicken

55 Slow-Cooker Recipes That Will Warm Up Your Fall

Slow-Cooker Recipes

Slow-Cooker Beef Stew

Sweater weather shouldn’t be too too far away. Go out to a harvest festival this weekend, buy a pumpkin and an armful of mums. Make hay while the sun shines!

“If you are careful,’ Garp wrote, ‘if you use good ingredients, and you don’t take any shortcuts, then you can usually cook something very good. Sometimes it is the only worthwhile product you can salvage from a day; what you make to eat. With writing, I find, you can have all the right ingredients, give plenty of time and care, and still get nothing. Also true of love. Cooking, therefore, can keep a person who tries hard sane.”
― John Irving

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Food Friday: Apple Cider Doughnuts

September 26, 2025 by Jean Sanders Leave a Comment

The Spy Test Kitchens have been enjoying a breath of fresh fall air. We have flown the coop for a few days, so this is a column from our own Way Back Machine.

The days have been beautiful with bright azure skies, brisk zephyr breezes, and I can imagine a touch of frost on the windshield in the morning. It is a good time for walks with Luke the wonder dog, who was heartily tired of the hot summer. The brown, fallen leaves make poking his nose in every bush an even more intriguing activity, from his point of view, while more annoying to my end of the leash. I do enjoy trailing a curious, buoyant dog, happily trotting ahead of me, than the pokey puppy I was hauling through the neighborhood all summer long.

Luke is also fond of taking car rides. He likes going along on short excursions to the farm stand for various seasonal purchases. In the past couple of weeks we’ve taken trips to buy chrysanthemum plants for the front porch, pumpkins that we will never carve, and the most recent excursion was to acquire more than enough apple cider to make a batch of apple cider doughnuts. There is nothing more tempting than a clutch of home-made doughnuts over a weekend. We have no steely resolve in this house as we prepare for our annual doughnut nosh.

Since we aren’t frying the doughnuts, we can enjoy the first tastes of fall without worrying about fats and all of the cardiac dangers associated with fried foods. I love the silicone doughnut molds we have, which are bright Lego colors. These molds are doughnut-shaped so we don’t have the added temptation of orphan doughnut holes, sitting sadly on the kitchen counter, warbling their alluring siren songs. I love the genius of reducing the cider on top of the stove to concentrate its flavor. This is why we like to read recipes, to wallow in the vast and varied experiences of the home cooks who have cooked before. These doughnuts taste like a visit to the farm stand, without all the car windows wide open to give Luke the cheap breezy thrills of a car ride to the country: Baked Apple Cider Donuts

If you do want the experience of frying doughnuts, à la Homer Price , please take a look at Mark Bittman’s recipe for fried apple cider doughnuts. I haven’t tried this recipe, but I bet it is deelish: Apple Cider Doughnuts

Apple cider doughnuts only require about a cup and a half of cider. Whatever should we do with the rest of the half gallon? We are concerned about food waste, and apple cider is so delicious! Naturally our thoughts first turn to cocktails: Apple Cider Smash

Spiked Hot Apple Cider Punch

But life is not a big cocktail party, sadly. We do need to eat dinner and be civilized for the greater part of the day. This is an ingenious way to use up some cider, and do something different with sausage: Sausage and Apple pie

It is a good time for change. It’s nice to wear sweaters again. Socks! What a novelty! I know in January that a 66°F morning would seem positively balmy, but today I watched mist rising from the grass where the sun was burning off the dew, and it felt good to bundle up a little bit. It will be divine to sink our teeth into warm, sweet apple cider doughnuts, too. Welcome, fall!

“Two sounds of autumn are unmistakable…the hurrying rustle of crisp leaves blown along the street…by a gusty wind, and the gabble of a flock of migrating geese.”
― Hal Borland

Contributor Jennifer Martella has pursued dual careers in architecture and real estate since she moved to the Eastern Shore in 2004. She has reestablished her architectural practice for residential and commercial projects and is a real estate agent for Meredith Fine Properties. She especially enjoys using her architectural expertise to help buyers envision how they could modify a potential property. Her Italian heritage led her to Piazza Italian Market, where she hosts wine tastings every Friday and Saturday afternoons.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Sections

More